Tuesday, April 19, 2016

TV1 was suckered in last night by the Labour Party to promoting the story that Earl Hagaman, founder of the Scenic Hotel Group, has made a $101k donation to the National Party in return for the Group being awarded a contact to manage the Niuean Matavai Resort which has been heavily funded by the New Zealand government.

If true, this was corruption at the highest level. At the very least heads must role.

For those of you who haven't been there (and not too many have) Niue is a small volcanic island 2,400k NE of NZL. It has a resident population of less than 1,200 (about the same as Reefton). It is a self governing State in free association with NZL who manages its diplomatic relations. It has few natural resources and no harbour. It is heavily dependent on NZ aid money. About the only standout thing about the country, apart from a certain wild beauty, is the number of churches which, at my last count, worked out at about one for every 55 persons on the island (and that's a sad story in itself with each church competing with its neighbour for souls and dosh ... I digress).

About the only thing Niue has going for it is tourism and to that end the NZL government has, at the request of the Niuean government, invested some 7.5m in aid money towards expanding the 'troubled' Matavai Resort with the Scenic Hotel Group being awarded the management contract. The Group denies any link between the donation made by Hagaman (in a private capacity) and the awarding of the contract which was the responsibility of the Niuean Tourism Property Trust whose members are appointed by Minister McCully.

This is where it gets interesting and a little uncomfortable for Mr Little. The trustees comprise our our High Commissioner to Niue, a Mr Ross Adern, the Deputy Secretary for Foreign Affairs and our past High Commissioner to Niue, Mr Mark Blumsky, who is lives in Niue and is married to a Niuean lady.

Mr Adern, for those who may not be aware, is a former police officer and, more importantly, is the father of Labour MP, Jacinda Adern.

So, Little is calling into question the integrity of the father of one of his own MPs along with that of the Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs as well as Mark Blumsky, former High Commissioner, former Mayor of Wellington and former MP in suggesting they were somehow influenced into awarding the contract to the Scenic Hotel Group.

I guess all's fair in love and war but I'm not sure the Adern family will see it that way.

p.s. I support the call for the Auditor-General to investigate to matter just to prove Little is crying wolf yet again and on the basis that when he actually finds a real issue to bleat about no-one will believe him.

provided Little is executed and the Labour party deregistered because it is just business as usual

Because it is business as usual. It's just business. Little is pandering to communists who hate businesses and hate profit. Pure and Simple.

Sooner or later Key needs to decided whether to tolerate the likes of Little, etc in parliament and in NZ.

We've been calling them to be wiped out for years. It's well past time Key spent a little bit of his "political capital" and eliminated Labour, Greens & Unions from NZ's politics and civil society. Sure Key would find a resurgent ACT in that environment rather harder to handled than Labour, but the gain for the country would be immense.

AT ... seems you are promoting the North Korean way of doing business where 'guilt by association' (yeon-jwa-je) is practised where the families up to three generations removed of persons deemed enemies of the State are incarcerated.

Just a tad extreme methinks but interesting that you think they've got it about right.

Seems straight forward to me. Company donates 100 grand to the National party. Said company a month later gets contract. Its not democracy its business. National party is all about business and Labour is all about people. What's new?

But what will happen is that if there is a bit of smoke and no fire Veteran will put the boot in with unholy glee in future posts. If there is a bit of smoke and bloody great fire the subject will not be revisited.

Egbut ... I know you are across the other side of the world and a somewhat divorced from the news at 'home' but could I suggest you read the post properly before commenting. There was NO donation from the Scenic Hotel Group. The donation was from the Group's founder Earl Hagaman and made in his private capacity. He has donated to the National Party before and no doubt, spurred on by this attempt at muckraking by Labour, will do so again. So I guess we need to thank Labour for that double own goal.

TV1 news last night and Little was very defensive. One got the impression he hadn't been briefed on Ross Adern's involvement (thank you Mr McCarten) before he first inserted foot into gob. This has McCarten's handprints all over it and McCarten doesn't wash his hands. Interesting that a couple of days before this blew up Heather du Plessis-Allan wrote in her column that speculation was mounting among Labour MPs that the Party was close to cutting McCarten. That was then, what about now? As she said ... "watch this space".

It was instructive too that Jacinda Adern wasn't commenting on the issue. Word around Parliament is that she is furious with Little. Paulus 3.36 may have it about right.

Handy Spittle seems to be digging deeper and deeper for traction.......and deeper and deeper...I've searched the news sites this morning and no one cares about the Nuie Hotel 'scandal'.

Meanwhile Darroch Ball on his Facebook page has reinvented Orivida and tied it in with water. Darroch would be better sticking with his only claim to fame as Commanding Officer of New Zealands Limited Service Volunteer Farces